Sunday, July 26, 2015

Hello !!!

Today was a raining day, a perfect North Devon day. This weather is a real source of energy for all the crops in the fields. Thanks to this, courgettes double in size in two days, the broads beans multiply, and the carrots and the beetroots are absolutely ready to be dug up.

In contrast, the alternating between sunny and rainy days further develops fungal diseases. Mushrooms love these conditions of moist and warm and that is why we can see some attacks on the potatoes and on the onions.

The only thing to do is to harvest as fast as possible or try innovative treatments like spraying the powdery mildew on the onions with milk. We will see the result !! :)

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Hi !!!

My previous article was about how to prevent pest attack in an organic way. It doesn't mean that we want to fight all the insects. On the contrary, several of them are very useful and we need strategies to attract them.
That is why I'm going to talk about the Phacelia. This crop is interesting for several reasons.

-Firstly it attracts insects, especially the ones which eat the very damaging aphids. Also, it's a good flower for the honey bees. Listen to this !!!

- Secondly it's important to always have the soil covered to prevent erosion and waste of minerals. In that way Phacelia is a crop with high covering power and easy to grow. Also, it facilitates a clean crop bed which minimizes the weeds. The weeds are smothered by the phacelia.

- The last point is that this flower is a good green manure, so, an excellent crop to use as a soil improver before the main crop is planted.(which, next year , will be alliums).

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Hello everybody,

A new busy week begins. We have to harvest flowers and plant some vegetables (brassicas, leeks, sweet corn...). So the problem is, how to protect vegetables from pests such as slugs and other insects in an organic way.
I am going to talk about two differents means.
- First, we can use some pellets against the slugs. They contains iron and potassium which destroy the digestive system of the mollusc. Anyway, it dosn't impact on the others animals which could be useful for the crop.
- Another way to protect the young plants is to cover them with an enviromesh. It's a net with very little holes to prevent insects, and bird attacks. It could also protect from the bad weather.
The problem is that if the enviromesh prevent pests, but it also blocks the good insects ...

That is why we have to weigh up the pros and cons for each solution that we plan to do.